Professional Development: Online Course

Why?

Decisions in businesses and organizations are too often based on fads, fashions and popular ideas promoted by large consulting firms and famous CEOs. At the same time, traditional models and new cutting-edge solutions often fail to deliver on what they promise. This situation leaves managers, business leaders, consultants and policymakers with a profound challenge: how can we stay away from trends and quick fixes, and instead use valid and reliable evidence to support the organization?

In response to this problem the idea of evidence-based decision-making has evolved, with the goal of improving the quality of decision making by using critically evaluated evidence from multiple sources – organizational data, professional expertise, stakeholder values and the scientific research literature. While this sounds sensible and straightforward, gathering, understanding and using evidence is challenging in many ways and requires a set of specific skills.

Online Course

In partnership with Carnegie Mellon University’s Open Learning Initiative (OLI) CEBMa has developed an online course that will develop your evidence-based skills and enhances your understanding of how an evidence-based approach can support organisations’ decision-making. The course modules are used in MBA and MSc programs at more than 30 universities and business schools all over the world.

Course Content

The skills the course aims to develop are: (1) critical thinking and reasoning; (2) identifying and gathering of the best available evidence from multiple sources; (3) critical appraisal of evidence ; and, (4) applying evidence of different forms to decision-making. An overview of all 15 modules and learning objectives can be found here >>.

The course includes 15 interactive, self-paced learning modules that you can complete online. The course combines text with learning activities, quizzes and assessments that provide immediate feedback: every time you answer a question incorrectly, feedback describes misconceptions behind your selection. When you answer correctly, positive feedback reinforces your learning. Each module takes, on average, 3 to 5 hours to complete.

Certificate

Upon completion of the course, you will receive an executive education certificate from Carnegie Mellon and CEBMa. However, you will only receive a certificate when you score 70% or higher on all assessment quizzes. But don’t worry, you have three attempts to reach this score. So if you fail the first time – learn from the feedback and try again.

Course fee

The course is accessible only for CEBMa’s professional members. The fee for signing up as a professional member is $200 USD ($150 membership fee, and a one-time $50 registration fee). In addition to access to the online course, CEBMa’s membership provides numerous benefits. 

You can sign up as a professional member here >>